Platinum Member

it seems like this is all the rage. every drummer i see now has a virgin bass drum with a large-ish rack tom mounted low in a snare stand. they'll have one or two floor toms and a snare to finish off the kit. that seems to be the standard setup these days (although i understand people have been doing this for many years).

Gold Member

I am having issues with this right now. I have a brand new 11x14 Ludwig Classic Maple tom. Even when it's just resting in the basket,the resonance and tone are greatly affected..When I hold it by it's rim it sounds good. When I put it on the stand There's a an annoying ring /overtone and the body of the drum is gone. It's like several frequencies are removed from the drum and all that is left is the one that annoys me. I've never had an issue like this but I've never used a snare stand to mount a tom either. Just for kicks I'm replacing both heads tomorrow. If it doesn't improve, I'm throwing a rims mount on it.

Platinum Member

Or here's another thing you might want to consider - go rack tom-less! I lots of people who forego the small tom altogether but keep a floor tom or two. Depending on the style of music you're playing, you may never need it. I've certainly done gigs where all I played was bass drum and snare drum all night. I'm sure everybody has.

A snare basket will definitely affect the resonance (a.k.a. "choke") a tom if the tom is tuned low. If a tom is tuned medium to high, it has less effect on the sound of the drum. The way to find out if your drum is being choked by the snare stand is to compare how it sounds while in the snare stand to when you pick it up by the rim with your fingers and strike it. If you notice a difference in sound/resonance, then you know exactly what effect the stand is having on your drum sound. It might be a huge difference or negligent difference.

Platinum Member

I use a snare stand on my tom & will never go back too a rim mount (weak & unstable) the trick is too have the snare basket grip the bottom of the rim not the flared part of the rim that holds the drumhead that will choke the tom for sure....hope this helped.

Member

I did that for a couple of years. The only con IMO is that you have one more piece of hardware to carry around. If you have a nice hardware bag, that would rectify that issue. Its fairly easy to adjust, and is pretty asthetically pleasing depending on your taste.